A10 has good teams so if you play sucky OOC games to get wins your SOS would go down.

No, because if you play sucky OOC games, you'd have a high win percentage. When you play other teams in the league, it helps THEIR SOS/RPI, because you all play each other.

It's really this simple:Two A-10 teams go 14-0 OOC vs bad SOS. They finish 8-8 in conference, tied for fifth. When they play each other, 22-8 vs 22-8. Someone wins, and gets a "marquee win" over a good RPI team, and get an at-large bid.

vs

Two A-10 teams go 7-5 OOC vs good SOS. They finish 9-9 in conference, tied for fifth. When they play each other, 16-14 vs 16-14. Someone wins, neither gets a marquee win. They go to the CBI.

The RPI is math. Any edge you can give your conference, you should do.

A10 has good teams so if you play sucky OOC games to get wins your SOS would go down.

No, because if you play sucky OOC games, you'd have a high win percentage. When you play other teams in the league, it helps THEIR SOS/RPI, because you all play each other.

It's really this simple:Two A-10 teams go 14-0 OOC vs bad SOS. They finish 8-8 in conference, tied for fifth. When they play each other, 22-8 vs 22-8. Someone wins, and gets a "marquee win" over a good RPI team, and get an at-large bid.

vs

Two A-10 teams go 7-5 OOC vs good SOS. They finish 9-9 in conference, tied for fifth. When they play each other, 16-14 vs 16-14. Someone wins, neither gets a marquee win. They go to the CBI.

The RPI is math. Any edge you can give your conference, you should do.

Okay but I was assuming you'd still play the same OOC just w/ 2 less games so 12-0 vs 14-0, or 7-5, vs 9-5, you can't have it both ways. So 22-8 vs 21-9 or 17-13 vs 16-14

With Butler and Xavier out for the New Big East and George Mason in from the CAA for the upcoming 2013-14 season, and Davidson in for the 2014-15 season, will there be a chance for the A-10 to have division play?

With Butler and Xavier out for the New Big East and George Mason in from the CAA for the upcoming 2013-14 season, and Davidson in for the 2014-15 season, will there be a chance for the A-10 to have division play?

I suppose its a possibility but true division play is hard to do with 14 teams because you would play your 6 division mates twice (12 games), and then either only play 6 of the 7 in the other division or play a 19 game conference schedule. It makes for unbalanced schedules. If they did go to division play I imagine the Mason-Dixon would be the dividing line--grouping the 5 Southern schools with the 2 Midwestern ones, that is if the Big East doesn't scoop them up.

With Butler and Xavier out for the New Big East and George Mason in from the CAA for the upcoming 2013-14 season, and Davidson in for the 2014-15 season, will there be a chance for the A-10 to have division play?

I suppose its a possibility but true division play is hard to do with 14 teams because you would play your 6 division mates twice (12 games), and then either only play 6 of the 7 in the other division or play a 19 game conference schedule. It makes for unbalanced schedules. If they did go to division play I imagine the Mason-Dixon would be the dividing line--grouping the 5 Southern schools with the 2 Midwestern ones, that is if the Big East doesn't scoop them up.

You have a point there. But yeah, it'll be upto 19 conference games under division play mode. However, it'll be upto the A-10 if they choose to have it or not. Like on the 2005-06, when Charlotte and St. Louis joined from C-USA, killing the division play; and this past season when Butler and VCU joined from the Horizon and the CAA respectively to make it 16.

Okay but I was assuming you'd still play the same OOC just w/ 2 less games so 12-0 vs 14-0, or 7-5, vs 9-5, you can't have it both ways. So 22-8 vs 21-9 or 17-13 vs 16-14

Yeah, I was combining two separate arguments into one example. But each show how the RPI is just math.

The Atlantic 10 was 145-77 OOC last season (.6532). In 28 games, .6532 is about 18-10. Now they'll go 14-14.

The average A-10 game is going to go from "worth" .5762 on everyone's SOS to .5672 on everyone's SOS. LaSalle's SOS would go from .5468 to .5417. Their RPI would go from #46 to #49 just from that SOS. (That's assuming they post the same record in the two new A-10 games than the two OOC games. If they lose one, they're out of the top 50 of the RPI, and the other four NCAA teams in the A-10 lose top 50 wins, which affects their seeding in the dance).

Also, which games do you think are coming OFF the schedules to fit those two more conference games? Probably the guaranteed games against non-BCS schools. Games in which they're a lot better than .6532 against. They were 71-3 vs RPI 200+ last year. If THOSE are the games that are replaced with conference games, and they go from 145-77 to 132-76 OOC, each schools' SOS would go down .0160. That would have bumped LaSalle AND Temple out of the Top 50 of the RPI; and Butler and VCU out of the Top 25.

I'd say "they're smart enough not to have divisional scheduling" but they WERE smart enough to not play 18 conference games until Davidson joins.

Come to think of it, back in like from 1999-2000 to 2004-05; the MAC (Mid-American Conference) had division format and with an odd number as the total of members (13 to be exact). Here's a sample: A team from Division A (7-team) would face the other 6 within twice (making it 12 games) and face teams of Division B (6-team) once (making it 6) for a total of 18; while a team from Division B would face the other 5 teams twice (making it 10) and face teams of Division A once (making it 7) for a total of 17. Just hoping that the staff members of the A-10 can analyze this (at least for men's/women's basketball/volleyball purposes.

As a forum about conference alignment and configuration, I assume that most of us on this site are probably the types of people who like things to be in order, with balance and symmetry. I'm not suggesting that we're all OCD or anything, just that there's a certain pre-disposition we probably have in common. (Most people only care what conference THEIR school is in and don't care about all the others. I'm the type of person who also discuss NHL realignment all the time on a hockey website).

As such, I'm guessing that has a lot to do with why everyone seems gung-ho on divisions and pod-systems within conferences. It just seems like in addition to discussing membership, there's ideas for divisions all the time.

I'm in the "Big Group" camp, and think things like divisions and scheduling pods are really not in the best interest of basketball conferences. The goal of realignment is to make money. The money comes from TV intventory. Therefore, the league should be aligned for the best possible TV inventory, and that doesn't mean letting geography dictate who plays whom twice every year. It should be Marquee TV Matchups dictating who plays whom twice. Often, there will be geographical overlap (VCU-Richmond, for example).

But in the A-10's case, if VCU and Saint Louis are the two headliners going forward, they should be playing each other twice to be on TV an extra time, to be talked about in the media, and get more exposure to the league.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum